Fehrenbach used history to explain today

Updated 8:07 am, Monday, December 2, 2013

Failing health forced T.R. Fehrenbach to give up his column in August.

Failing health forced T.R. Fehrenbach to give up his column in August.

Fehrenbach used history to explain today

1 / 1

Back to Gallery

T.R. Fehrenbach earned his credentials writing books, but he kept South Texans entertained by writing a newspaper column on the side.

Fehrenbach's failing health forced him to give up his column in August. He died Sunday.

After filing his weekly column for the Express-News — a ritual he enjoyed for 30 years — Fehrenbach would call editors to let them know he had submitted “my latest offering.”

Former Express-News Copy Editor Maria Anglin served for several years as Fehrenbach's main point of contact at the newspaper.

“He really, really loved writing his opinion column. He'd call every week to talk about what he had written, what he was planning to write about and what he thought the public needed to be talking about but wasn't,” she recalled.

Fehrenbach always was curious about what has happening around town as well as reader reaction. And he enjoyed stirring up controversy — within reason. Fehrenbach was a prudent columnist, but he would dive head first into volatile territory.

He had no fear. He had seen it all before. Actually, he had studied it all before.

And fortunately for our readers, it still entertained him enough to inspire his continued musings and interpretations well past the time most people call it a day.

The author of 18 nonfiction books, including the essential “Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans,” Fehrenbach by far was more intellectual than the average newspaper columnist, and he used history as a platform to shine light on current events.

A column published March 24, which analyzed excessively divisive and self-destructive politics, illustrates the Fehrenbach style.

“If you study World War I — the seminal catastrophe of the 20th century — the elites sent millions of people to death and nations to destruction for no intelligent reason,” Fehrenbach wrote. “Rivalry and mutual fear are not expressions of intelligence. Around the world today, most of humanity's problems stem from our inability to rule ourselves.”

That column applied to today's dysfunctional situation in Washington, but it also will apply to future turf-minded, power-mad politicians in this nation and others. The column is timeless, not tied only to the day's headlines.

Fehrenbach's greatest gift as a columnist was his ability show readers how universal truths culled from history relate to today's tempests. Our problems are nothing new. Human nature is the common thread through history.

As Anglin said Sunday, “Periodically, something will happen that makes me think, 'Oh, now I get it. That's what he was talking about.' I bet a lot of people who knew him — if only through his column — feel the same way.”